WHAT WILL IT TAKE

by Mary Saracino

Cartoon by Monireh Ahma

What will it take to end

this multi-millennial madness,

this lust for war and power,

this emphasis on fear,

scarcity, competition?

What will it take to wake up,

to say no to all that seeks to harm,

to say yes to all that seeks to heal, to unite

to see that we are kin to all—humans and non-humans,

to celebrate diversity and dance in the arms

of cooperation and love,

a symbiotic tango imbued with gratitude

where flourishing is mutual?

What will it take to uncloud our eyes,

unjail our hearts,

unchain our minds,

free ourselves from the edicts,

the dogmas, the ideologies that spew

hatred, cruelty, lies, and every other

evil known to humankind?

We need circles, not ladders,

communities, not hierarchies.

We are not commodities

to be bought and sold,

and neither is the Earth

with all Her bountiful gifts.

The trees are trembling,

the lands are on fire,

the winds are roaring,

the birds are begging us

to heed the cries of Mother Nature

who gifts us with abundance,

water, rain, wind, food, sunshine, shelter,

asking only for reciprocity, giving

back what we take, honoring Her

by sharing her bounty, not hording it.

We are destroying our only home.

We are polluting our souls.

We are committing ecocide,

decimating everything

that is sacred and true

and vital to our future.

What will it take for us

to reclaim our birthright,

the gifts bestowed upon us by Nature

in all Her many forms?

What will it take for us to walk,

hand-in-hand, arm-in-arm,

shoulder-to-shoulder

to change the world,

dismantle what has been so wrong

for far, far too long?

We need leaders who will lead us

to prosperity and peace,

who will proclaim our joint responsibility

to care for one another and the planet,

who know that might is not right,

that war is not the answer,

that kindness, compassion, empathy

are the seeds we need to sow

to create a better way to live,

build a symbiotic future

where we can all survive and thrive.

What will it take for us

to raise our howling voices,

in unison and proclaim:

“We’ve had enough! You do not own us, or the planet.

We must seize the reins and reinstate sharing and caring,

establish a new way, a better way, before it’s too late!”

Mary Saracino is a novelist, memoir writer, and poet. Her book of poetry, Motherlines, was published by Pearlsong Press (February 2026). She is the author of four novels: Heretics: A Love Story (Pearlsong Press 2014), The Singing of Swans (Pearlsong Press 2006), No Matter What (Spinsters Ink 1993), and Finding Grace (Spinsters Ink 1999), and the memoir, Voices of the Soft-bellied Warrior (Spinsters Ink 2001). She co-edited (with Mary Beth Moser) She Is Everywhere! Volume 3: An anthology of writings in womanist/feminist spirituality (iUniverse 2012), which earned the 2013 Enheduanna Award for Excellence in Women-Centered Literature from Sofia University.

POLITICAL THEATER

by Jim Kelly

Cartoon by Gary. A Huck

When death darkens
the occupied space
of the political theater,

and the curtains,
somber and heavy,
are stitched with memories
of acid speech,

the audience pauses.

Not because the performance
was noble.

Not because every act
deserves applause.

Not because every wound
has healed.

The record remains.

The speeches remain.

The injuries,
the divisions,
the grievances,
remain.

Yet death changes
the lighting.

For a moment,

The spotlight shifts
from ideology
to mortality.

From victory
to loss.

From power
to the frailty
shared by every human being.

There will be time
for historians
to sort through the record.

There will be time
for critics
to weigh the consequences.

There will be time
for citizens
to debate the legacy.

But in the first shadow
cast by death,

when kindness is impossible,

Silence may be
the most humane response.

Not surrender.

Not agreement.

Not absolution.

Only the recognition
that death
has already spoken
the final line.

Jim Kelly is a California poet whose work explores democracy, race, caregiving, and social justice. His poetry has appeared in Litro Magazine, Urban Pen Magazine, Urban Poems, and other literary publications. He is the author of the chapbooks The Quiet Witness: Civic Poems of Power, Memory, and Conscience and Caregiving Through Poetry.

DROP THE MIC

by Steven Kent

 

 

 

"U.S. defense spending would rise $445B under Trump budget plan, with steep cuts elsewhere." —The Guardian, April 3, 2026

A budget written by a nutter
Favors guns instead of butter.
Starve the people, stoke the power?
No, said Mr. Eisenhower.

 

 

Steven Kent is the poetic alter ego of writer and musician Kent Burnside. His work appears in 251, Asses of Parnassus, The Dirigible Balloon, Light, Lighten Up Online, The Lyric, New Verse News, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Philosophy Now, The Pierian, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, The Road Not Taken: A Journal of Formal Poetry, Snakeskin, and Well Read. His collections I Tried (And Other Poems, Too) (2023) and Home at Last (2025) are published by Kelsay Books. 

TO 165 EXPENDABLES, SHAJERAH TAYYEBEH GIRLS’ ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, MINAB, IRAN

by Kent Reichert

It’s a shame you had to die
but hey,
that’s war, right?
Leave it to the smoke 
in your father’s eyes to mourn your passing,
let rubble be your obituary
caught up as you were in other's dreams of power
and fear.
They say 
your death is the path to peace. They say
it is going well. They say
all according to plan. They say
their children are safer now.
When their school bells ring,
the screams at recess are joyful abandon.
But your screams rain down upon your
mother's heart
and will for the eternity she lives each
moment
without you.
At least you were not alone at your passing.
Holding your hand 
were your ideas and hopes and wishes and dreams;
your children and grandchildren;
your silly laughter;
your joy;
your love of chickpea cookies;
your bedtime stories;
your heart a flutter when that boy said he liked you
and you couldn’t run fast enough to tell your friends.
They were there, right there with you when
your world evaporated instantly.
They feared you or was it where you were born? Or they feared
your school’s location. Or they feared
who you worshipped. Or they feared 
the words your leaders spoke. Or they feared
what they might do. Or they feared…so…
“I got him before he got me.” 
Nothing personal, just collateral damage.

Those in power far away
hugged power above all else. They smiled in their safety
and their children and grand children’s safety, for…

They say it is going well. They say
all according to plan. They say
the world is safer now.
After all it was them or you, wasn’t it?
That's what they said and 
It’s a shame you had to die
But hey
that’s war, right?


Kent Reichert spends autumn beside Becky’s Creek on the Intracoastal Waterway across from North Carolina's Topsail Island. He passes the time walking his dogs, practicing digital photography and writing. His poetry has appeared in a number of journals and anthologies.

TO THE REPUBLIC

by Athena Kildegaard

It is hard, right now, to think

of America, my country, it no longer
holds together inside its borders. 
Four decades ago, every school day, 
I asked one of the twelve-year-olds
in my charge to lead us in the Pledge
of Allegiance. It was the law, this recital.
As good a way as any, I thought, to begin.
Words, words, slippery as jello cubes,
hardly join, now, to anything real.
My heart beats, my hand firms itself
to my chest—this friction, this viva—
but my tongue dare not lift, my lips
not open, my body not burst
with air, with light. America, where
have you gone?

You are in Minneapolis,
America, handing out scarves and hats,
standing beside your neighbors, lifting
whistles to your lips because your lips
have power, your breath has power,
you are teaching us how to be Americans.

Athena Kildegaard is the author of six books of poetry, most recently Prairie Midden (Tinderbox Editions), winner of the WILLA Literary Award. 

GOOD NIGHT AMERICA, JANUARY 2026

by Bonnie Jo Campbell

AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News.

Good night almighty oaks, good night acorns
snug in shells. Goodnight hens, asleep on perches. 
Good night good people of Minneapolis St. Paul
hanging sheets of plastic over doors broken down 
by ICE agents. Lullaby your little ones to sleep.  
Good night neighbors with cameras and whistles. 
Good night Mr. President, tweeting your fury,
slide easy into haunting dreams of disloyalty, 
 
dreams of failed plastic surgery, bad poll numbers,
dreams of not enough admirers or paying guests—
Remember the kerfuffle when caviar was served 
at Mar-a-Lago in tiny plastic spoons? Never enough! 
It’s natural to want more caviar, money and power. 
It’s natural to want kids not to be afraid or hungry
or molested or separated or zip-tied or teargassed. 

Bonnie Jo Campbell’s latest novel is The Waters, W.W. Norton, 2024.

A FINGER FOR THE WORKERS

by Donna Katzin

Cartoon by Nick Anderson

In his big-boss suit, the President 

tours the Ford factory, as if he owns the place,

until a heckler calls him a predator

without even slowing down the line

that devours his labor until the bell rings

to keep the country’s machinery running.

 

The boss’s fingers have never known a callous,       

labored long hours to meet production quotas

until they ached and his back complained.

They flick disdain and disrespect to workers 

like cigarette butts or young women used up

until the men on top tire of them,

spit them out, like last night’s nicotine—traumas and all.

 

But the gesture masquerading as power

sends a message to the shop floor crew—

the truth-teller has gotten under 

boss-man’s sagging skin,

and this group knows how to organize… 

They can do it again.

 
A former union organizer, Donna Katzin has worked for more than four decades with South Africa in its struggle to defeat apartheid and advance the new nation's  democratic development.  She also continues  through Tipitapa Partners to work with vulnerable Nicaraguan communities struggling to feed their children.  She is the author of With These Hands, a book of poetry and photos of South Africans struggling to give birth to a new nation, and a published poet honored to have been included in The New Verse News.

EPSTEIN WAR

by KP Liles 

Cartoon by Nick Anderson

It was always about the crude.

Extracting the dark

archives out 

from under us.

A few wealthy men 

plotting to own

everything, down

to the last

liquified remains 

they groom 

to burn. Virgin 

trillions naked

for the taking.

O Power! the Power!

Unrivaled deployment—

Military, ICE, beyond oversight…

Taste Venezuela: 

lest we forget

it’s a jungle out there. 

War

drugs, law, lust

regime change

Mexico, Cuba

Minneapolis

Iran

Portland, Greenland

Behold! A politics of scandal 

heaped on scandal heaped

on scandal heaped on

morals. On truth.

Still, the trafficked girls

will not be

silenced. Drill! 

If you have the stomach for it.

It was always 

about the crude.

KP Liles desires a better, safer world for his daughter. For his son, his family, his students, his community, his fellow decent human beings. So, while he would have preferred to have spent time indulging in his newfound enthusiasm for birding, he felt obligated to put on the poet uniform for this piece.

YOUR SEASON IN HELL IN AMERICA

by Mickey J. Corrigan

You've been waiting 
all along, yes 
for this, yes you
allowing for them
bent over two fold
in the fields
in the gardens, trucks
in their scarves, skin
dark eyes gleaming
in the bleak fog
of low-paid overwork
awaiting your notice
of them there, ripe
for a brutal harvest.

Just don't open the door

But you've drunk the liquor 
from a powerful still
and do not own
your own mind
your life a farce
a play you must 
take your role 
too seriously.

Just don't look at the news

You stopped short
of an investigation
into why, why who
in the muck, the mud
the bars, the camps
the courts, the planes
Get them out!
and to make the world 
stop twirling
to make the whirling 
stand still
you began again
to twist the facts
in your twirling, 
whirling mind
and its disorders.

Just walk down any street

You could see hell
arising around you
beatings, kidnappings
death on high seas
erasing all the brown
while you clung
to your bleached faith
to your so-called moralities 
floating there
like tainted water
or grain alcohol
in your oily brain pan.

Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan hides out in the lush ruins of South Florida. She writes pulp fiction, literary crime, and psychological thrillers. Her poems have appeared in literary journals and chapbooks. A collection of biographical poems on 20th century poets is in press with Clare Songbirds Publishing.

PUBLICITY STUNT

By Matt Witt

Danny Danon, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, on X.

When 500 leaders from 40 countries formed a flotilla to try to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza, the Israeli government arrested them and said the flotilla was a “publicity stunt” and against the law.

When auto workers sat down in a General Motors plant in 1937 and refused to relinquish the factory until the company recognized their union, that was a publicity stunt and against the law.

When young Black people challenged segregation by sitting at whites-only lunch counters, that was a publicity stunt and against the law.

When suffragettes chained themselves to the White House and went on hunger strikes in jail to win the right to vote, that was a publicity stunt and against the law.

When protesters in India led by Gandhi boycotted British goods as part of a campaign for independence, that was a publicity stunt and against the law.

When South Africans deliberately violated apartheid rules like curfews in Black townships, that was a publicity stunt and against the law.

So many laws. So much power. So many publicity stunts yet to come.

October 4, 2025

Matt Witt is a writer and photographer in Oregon. His work may be seen at MattWittPhotography.com. His latest book is Monumental Beauty: Wonders Worth Protecting in the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument.

DAUGHTERS

by Clare Richardson-Barlow

Judith Butler

Amid all the other breaking news consuming the United States this month, the University of California, Berkeley, arguably the nation’s most elite public university, gave the Trump administration a list of 160 names of faculty, staff and students, as part of an investigation into “alleged antisemitic incidents”. While all the names on this list are significant, one name in particular that UC Berkeley handed over to the Trump administration stands out: Judith Butler, the eminent queer theorist, literary theorist and philosopher, and one of the most famous public intellectuals in the United States today. In addition to Butler’s name representing one of the most high-profile academic scalps demanded by the Trump administration in its campaign against higher education so far, Butler’s name is also notable for another reason: Butler is proudly and publicly Jewish, and has written extendively about their Jewish identity and how it informs their politics. In the name of “fighting antisemitism”, the Trump administration is publicly making an example out of arguably the most famous Jewish public intellectual in the country today. —The Guardian, September 22, 2025

They pass the names along,
as though paper could hold a body.
Butler’s among them—
the one who told us
gender is a stage,
a script rehearsed until it feels like bone.

Now the government calls their name,
writes it as accusation,
as though thought itself
were treason.

I think of the mothers in Palestine,
their daughters’ names whispered
to checkpoints and borders,
written into files,
circulated in offices
where no one sees their faces.
A name becomes a burden to carry,
a permission denied.

Butler compared it to Kafka—
to McCarthy, to lists, to silence—
and I believe them.
A list is never just a list.
It is the beginning of forgetting
and the rehearsal of fear.

And still,
I return to the crib
where my baby curls her hand around mine,
her pudgy fist the size of a plum.
She cannot ask yet what it means to be a girl,
but already the world
is writing her story,
already she is among the daughters
who must learn to abide.

Butler’s voice is not just theirs.
It is the echo of every woman
who has been told to hush,
every mother
who has watched her child’s name
crossed out by a hand of power.

What is silenced will not stay silent.
What is written down
will be read again.
Even in exile,
even in mourning,
Her many voices endure—
not performance,
but song.

Clare Richardson-Barlow is a writer, political economist, and lecturer at the University of Leeds. Her work spans academic, policy, and creative forms, with a focus on climate, energy, and justice. Before academia, she worked in Washington, D.C. think tanks on international policy. Her poetry and essays often explore womanhood, memory, and myth, especially how women’s voices are silenced and reimagined as strength. Originally from Oregon, she now lives in Yorkshire.